Twice Bitten, Thrice Deadly
by ScarfySorty
Summary: AU from S7E10. Barney is heartbroken by Robin and gives up his life, taking up the facade of Billy/Dr Horrible. Meanwhile, the gang haven't given up finding him. Which life will Barney choose? Crossover with DHSAB, but mostly HIMYM. Angst, with some fluff
1. Chapter 1

November 2009

"And for Barney, this was the second that would last forever."

His breath caught and his chest felt oddly tight, like he was about to have a heart attack. His mind raced, all sorts of unrelated thoughts just tumbling in his head as his cheeks flushed and a cold feeling washed over him. There was an odd feeling in his throat, and he blinked rapidly, forcing the tears (that weren't supposed to be there) back as the moment passed.

Hands. What were they doing. He didn't know. He didn't know what he was doing, nothing could save him now. He forced himself to think straight. He had to get out of here. Now.

"I should go. Rough night." His legs brought him over to the gang and his mouth uttered something. He was surprisingly pleased that his voice didn't crack. He really was good at this lying thing.

The gang replied something, but his brain picked one voice out from the mess - Robin's. "I'm sorry."

_It's too late too late toolate._

"Don't be."

Headed out of the bar. Up the lift. Down the alley, right, left, open door. Simple instructions, don't think, just do. Enter apartment, right, right into bedroom. Get rid of all the rose petals, all the candles, all the stupid things you did because you thought she loved you back even for a second.

When Barney had the bag of rose petals and candles in one hand, the room with no trace of his ever being there, he walked out of the apartment and dumped it in the trash. As he walked away, he glanced through the clear windows of MacLaren's, saw her, and saw him sitting there.

And in that moment, Barney was sure. And he walked on.

None of the gang saw him again. 48 hours later, a missing report was filed with the police.

Barney Stinson was gone.

November 2011

Billy looked at himself in the mirror. Dressed in a beautiful suit, Dolce Gabbana, blue striped stuff, jacket perfectly set. Nothing had changed in the two years, exactly two years since he had walked out on his old life.

He laughed morosely. Yeah, right. He took one last look at the mirror, before pulling the tie off, carefully taking off his jacket and placing it on the bed, suiting down. It was the only suit he owned now. He swore to himself he would get rid of it everytime he saw it, but there were just some things so deeply ingrained in his past that wouldn't budge.

Stored the suit back into the cupboard, to be worn exactly one year from now, a tradition he had developed. Things were very different for him now. Gone was Barney Stinson. The cliché uttering, pick up line expert, women connoisseur was gone, had been breaking apart slowly for years until all that was left was a heart surviving on a love that persevered. And when that heart was broken, Barney Stinson died along with it.

The first thing he had done as not-Barney was take a cab to the airport. He hadn't taken anything from his apartment, not his wall-TV, not his suits, not even his Stormtrooper. He still kinda missed that Stormtrooper. Took the first flight to any state in America, didn't even know what it was until he was on the plane and airborne.

Los Angeles, California.

Then he had spent weeks just walking around, in the dark or the daylight, he didn't care because suddenly, nothing mattered. When work calls started coming in, he threw his cell phone into the train tracks and bought a new one. No numbers. He never had the habit of remembering phone numbers anyway. Went to hotels when he was tired and used one of his multiple fake credit cards, ignoring the pointed looks of disbelief at his run-down state. Oh yeah, because he had ditched the suit upon getting off the plane and bought a single pair of jeans and a shirt that went unchanged for two weeks straight.

It was like Shannon all over again, except…. Worse. With Shannon, she hadn't been his only hope. He had other things in his life that he cared about. Peace Corp. His lifestyle. Saving the world. Sure, he had changed massively when she dumped him, but he didn't give up.

But Barney Stinson, the Barney Stinson that he created the moment he saw that suit advertisement, was always precariously close to the edge. Awesome-Barney had always been a façade, but one that grew so close to his heart that it was almost real. But real-Barney had been giving up, slowly, cracking from the pressure for a while. Awesome-Barney had sworn never to fall in love again, because girls are bitches and will end up breaking your heart. But he cracked, and he fell in love. Unrequited love, then requited love, then unrequited love, then the frankly very confusing period when they slept together. He had put everything, everything he had left on that love.

And it fell through.

So Barney fell through.

Not-Barney found himself thinking about one thing though, and it wasn't about Ted or Lily or Marshall or her, not-Barney had locked that part of his brain down. It was about work. He wondered if they'd find him. They probably will. They always did.

And find him they did.

He was in some hotel with some famous-sounding name, considering shaving for the first time in weeks, maybe going out and finding something to do, when the knock on his door came.

Instinctively, he knew. After all, the credit cards that he'd been using, it was theirs. Wasn't hard for them to track him down.

He opened the door and saw two men in suits staring back at him. Stepped aside, and they entered.

He'd been here before. Same situation, but different people.

"Barney Stinson. Or should I saw, Billy Smith," A man whom he knew as Jackson said, sitting on the couch. "You've always favoured that name out of all the others."

"What can I say? I like the initials," Barney replied, his voice slightly hoarse. He hadn't been talking for a while and it was almost as though it took a while for him to get the hang of what to reply again.

"It's been a month. It's time," The other, Bennett, replied.

"The Company is more than happy to let you take on a new role with your new life. Perhaps something more low key, until you feel like returning to the offices."

The Company. He and The Company went back a long way, ever since he was mugged in college. Things happened that night, and after that, the Company had been a part of his life.

"We were with you when you broke up with Shannon. And it was for the better, you became a much better person. Suits, offices, lots of money, whatever you wanted. Women, scotch, laser tag."

"I don't care about the money any-"

"We know you don't. We're offering you to the chance to just be a low key robber here. Someone… unskilled. Many attempts that fail, but never enough evidence to get you arrested. Just a life in the suburbs, pretending to try to rob banks and creating just enough distractions for us to do the real job."

"We'll cover all expenses, as always. Erase your track if you want us too. The police gave up searching for you a few days back. Not that they'd ever come looking in California."

The men spoke alternately, and Barney knew all these. Deep down, he had always known the Company would come to pull him back from the brink. And this visit was what he needed.

"I'll do it."

"We know. I must say, I like the t-shirt look on you though. You might consider making that your thing when you're not wearing your uniform."

"Uniform?"

"Every supervillian needs a uniform," Jackson said, standing up and smiling thinly. "Surprise us."

And they walked out, leaving behind someone who wasn't hippie-Barney, awesome-Barney or not-Barney.

That was the day Billy Smith was born.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I hadn't expected this story to come to anything at all, I simply wrote it because I had a lot of angst to get out of me after watching 'Tick Tick Tick' for the billionth time, and during my extreme DHSAB period of obsession. I wrote it in under an hour and put it up without even reading through it once (so sorry for all the typos.) Quite pleasantly surprised that people read/reviewed it, and thanks a lot to all of you who did, as well as alert'd and favourited it!

* * *

><p>November 2011<p>

New York

Tonight was the night. They all knew it, and it hung over the group awkwardly, something they all wanted to pretend had never happened but impossible to ignore. Lily and Marshall were abnormally quiet, but Ted noticed that their hands were grasped tightly together, and not once had they moved from that position in the two hours that they had been at MacLaren's. Robin knocked back a glass of scotch, her fifth in that hour alone. Ted found himself reciting names of architects in his mind, long pieces of poetry in their original Latin form, anything to distract himself from the distinct lack of one person.

They hoped, ever so briefly. Even though each one of them claimed not to, swore with all their hearts and probably wished that they didn't. But every time the door to the bar opened, their eyes flashed to the door, heads rising, hopes rising but quickly crushed by unfamiliar, unimportant faces.

Exactly two years had gone by just like that. Ted wondered where Barney was now, what he was doing. Whether he was still the same old womanising Barney. When Barney had disappeared so suddenly, first to arrive was the panic. Then the dying embers of hope. Then the blame. And finally, the ways to cope.

Ted threw himself into work, and when that failed, he started hanging out at the bar more often. Whenever he saw a slutty girl, classified by Barney himself as girls between 18 and 25 at any bar wearing either a tank top, low cut jeans or sporting at least one tattoo (score if it's a tramp stamp), or a girl from any other country or state (the only exception being that she was hot, of course), he ended up talking to her, using every trick Barney had taught him as a sort of ode to him.

He hardly ever went back with them, though Barney's lessons proved surprisingly effective. He'd asked about charming and handsome blonds who had slept with them and never called them again, and he allowed himself to hope, ever so briefly, when he asked what his name was. Never was it Barney, or Lorenzo von Matterhorn, or Larney Stinson, or any of the fake names that Ted had known Barney to use.

Lily blamed herself for not noticing the signs, despite how much everyone in the group told her that it wasn't her fault. She distracted herself with her precious baby, whom she and Marshall decided to name Billy - the name Barney once said that he would have picked for himself had he not been named Barney.

Marshall considered going back to work at GNB just for the memories of Barney there. But he didn't. He took care of his son and thought of all the things that Barney would have tried to teach him. And whenever the salt he threw over his shoulder for good luck formed a shape, or something that looked like a sasquatch was spotted in New York, he took it as a sign that Barney would be back soon. But he never was.

And Robin. Robin dealt with it the worst. Her relationship with Kevin lasted two more weeks before she broke down and told him the truth. Kevin was surprisingly calm and the split was amicable, but Robin dealt with things the way she always did - keeping to herself and letting everything build up within her until she was about to burst. She spent entire nights shooting targets, drinking scotch and lighting cigars. She called up every laser tag place in New York to ask if a particularly talented blond of about 30 years old had been there recently. She found Guy, Barney's guy guy, but Barney hadn't been in contact with him either. And finally, she pretended to care a lot more about work and gave up on dating entirely.

After the sixth scotch, Ted insisted that he bring Robin back to the apartment before she passed out, but Robin refused. Silence hung over the group once more, when Lily finally broke it by saying the one thing that was everyone's minds.

"I miss Barney."

And they sat there, Lily and Marshall holding hands, Ted distracting himself and Robin drinking scotch, just waiting for the man they knew would never come.

* * *

><p>Los Angeles<p>

Actual-Barney liked the Billy that he had created, the Billy Smith that he now lived. He liked the simplicity of Billy's life, the uncomplicated everyday problems that were easily resolved, the cheeky hints to his old life that he included just for the laugh.

Like the blog. He had locked his old blog, awesome-Barney's blog, so well that the only people who could get through the system were The Company's people. Billy's blog however, he enjoyed. It was fun, playing Billy, playing Dr Horrible. A quirky name and a quirky identity, so different from his previous life, and Barney enjoyed it.

It had been more than a year before he realised why he always dressed up a little bit better before going to the Laundromat, why he stumbled constantly while washing his clothes there, why he seemed unable to talk. Penny, the girl whom he always thought was kinda cute had somehow wormed her way into his heart. Billy's heart. Or actual-Barney's heart, he wasn't sure.

Awesome-Barney gone, he couldn't even talk to her, let alone attempt a pick-up line. And he liked that, in a twisted way. The simple love of pining after the girl at the Laundromat.

He liked being Dr Horrible. Occasionally breaking away from Billy and pretending to be evil, like a kitten dressing up as a lion. Often, he watched his blog and laughed at it, because with his life being so simple, there was suddenly a lot more to laugh at.

He even liked being defeated, being triumphed at every attempt by Captain Hammer. He even liked getting beaten up, feeling in a twisted way that he somehow deserved it after all he had done to the girls as awesome-Barney.

All in all, he liked his new life.

And he most definitely did not miss four people in New York.

And if he ever did ponder about them occasionally, like every second of each day, it was only because they were probably useless without his awesome presence there. He refused to miss them, to feel lonely without them, to wonder whether Lily and Marshall had a child, whether Ted had married, and…. And wonder anything about her.

He most definitely never thought about her. Never had she visited him in his dreams, her scent, her crinkly laugh, every detail of her seeping into his subconscious every single night, until he woke up, feeling oddly empty, like there was a hole within him.

Which was why he had no idea why he woken up at 2am in the morning exactly two years after he had left awesome-Barney behind, got on the computer and did the one thing he could that he thought might fill the growing emptiness within him.

Book a ticket.

To New York.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I'm not really sure about where I want this story to go, again, this wasn't a well-planned story, just a spur of the moment thing. I foresee a lot of angst in the future (I love me some good Barney angst), unresolved Barney/Robin issues (Hardcore BrOTP shipper here, sorry) and some fluff at the end, but if anyone has any ideas/preferences for what direction you want the story to take, just leave a review! Thanks again for everyone who read and reviewed the story!

I also changed the category of this story to purely HIMYM, because there's not going to be that much of a crossover, only partially in the later chapters, and I'm gonna focus more on the gang.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>The Company wasn't happy, that Barney knew for sure. They dropped by the day after he booked his tickets, another two men in suits; they all looked the same to him in the end. Well trained, blended in well, each one completing the other's sentences - designed to intimidate. But Barney knew their tricks; he had once been one of the men in the suits, after all.<p>

"Why are you going back to New York? We were under the impression that your life here suited you well."

"You know the lengths to which we go to protect your previous identities. You are doing us no favours by trying to relive the past."

He knew that. He knew it all. He had no idea why he was going back, which was why he didn't answer, simply stood there, silent. Awesome-Barney would have had a witty comeback, but Billy was content with staying awkwardly quiet.

"The Company isn't pleased, but is willing to grant you this one opportunity."

"We have a… job for you. In New York. A temporary identity that will last two weeks, no more."

A rushing wave of relief. Why relief? Because he was being granted a chance to say his final goodbye, something he should have done two years ago?

"We found a potential candidate for the Company in a similar situation that we found you. We need an unfamiliar but experienced face to access him."

"Enter the field, observe him for a while, and then we'll set up the interview. When that's done, wrap up the paperwork and it's back to Billy Smith."

Barney nodded, wordless. One of the men set a suitcase on the plain table next to the door.

"Read through it carefully, then burn it. Your plane leaves tomorrow. Don't be late, Mr Lorenzo von Matterhorn," one said, standing up.

Barney looked up, surprised. He thought that the Company would have destroyed all trace of Awesome-Barney, for safety's sake.

The man chuckled, dark humour in his voice. "No doubt the candidate will research your name, and we're interested to see how he'll react. We'll be watching."

No doubt on that point, Barney thought as the men walked out of his house, disappearing down the road almost immediately.

He sighed as he sunk into his chair and opened the briefcase, staring at the single plane ticket to New York and wondered what he would do there? Follow them around, see how they were doing? Drop by MacLaren's in an elaborate disguise? Maybe they didn't even live there anymore.

Guess he was just gonna have wing it. Awesome-Barney style.

* * *

><p><em>Kevin saying I love you I love you Iloveyou, why do you even like me? You're almost as messed up as I am maybe I want the trouble the clock striking midnight shaking head him leaving for the last time the urge to call him back I should have I made a mistake I made a horrible mistake come back.<em>

Robin awoke, screaming into her pillow. The nightmare, the one she had on and off, the same exact sequence of flashbacks every time.

It haunted her, more than her fear of her father abandoning her, more than her fear of never making it as a reporter, more than anything else.

After she broke up with Kevin, she hadn't been very stable, and Kevin had offered her contacts to some of his friends who could help her with her problems.

But Robin didn't need them. She knew why dreams of him, his last moments with her, still plagued her.

Because Barney was the one person who understood what it felt like, what it meant to be abandoned, to have all hope wrenched from you.

And she had done that exact same thing to him.

And she would never forgive herself for that.

* * *

><p>Barney and the Company went back a long, long way. He was 21, maybe 22 when it happened. He was walking down the streets at night, heading back after a shift at work with Shannon.<p>

_Someone grabbed him from behind, shoved him against the wall, his hands wrenched painfully behind his back. _

_A mugger. By the statistics of New York, it was a miracle he hadn't been mugged up till now. Barney knew what to do, even his mother had had the sense to teach him. Give the money and run the moment they let go of you. That's all that want, after all._

_But Barney wasn't in the mood for this. Shannon's father had forced their trip with the Peace Corps to be delayed another two months, and two guys had started a fight in the coffee house earlier and broke some plates and it was late and frankly all he wanted was to go home and drink some fair-trade coffee._

_Something inside him snapped, a raging anger (an emotion he hardly felt at that point in his life), about how he was not going to put up with this guy mugging him. _

_He felt his hands wrench themselves from the man's grasp with a surprising strength - strength he didn't know that he had. The man reached for his knife, the light of a nearby street lamp glinting off its edge, but his hands were already there, smacking the wrist deftly. The knife clattered the ground somewhere, and Barney found himself laying into the guy, an elbow to the windpipe, a knee to the groin._

_It felt so good, so good to feel vindicated, to release all those feelings for once. He bathed in the glory for a second, before abruptly stopping. _

_What was he doing? What had he done?_

_The mugger groaned, slumped against the floor. There were a few splatters of blood on his shirt, on the wall, on Barney's hands. He backed away, breathing irregular, heart racing. What had he done?_

_He didn't know what to do. To run? To call for an ambulance? _

_He heard footsteps, a man rounding a corner. That's it, then. He was going to jail. How had this happened? What monster had been unleashed within him?_

_The man, dressed in a suit, was clapping, a smile on his face but a cold, sharp look in his eyes. "Impressive," he said. _

_Barney looked back at what he had done to the man, and 'impressive' was not one of the words that immediately jumped to mind. Unlike 'violent', 'psychotic' and 'what is wrong with me'._

"_Nothing I'd expect from someone like you, I mean," the man clarified, and Barney backed up more, hitting the wall behind him. He frantically tried to wipe a drop of blood off of his shirt, tried to straighten it, to settle the ruffled long hair._

"_You have potential," the man continued, and Barney decided that he was crazy, and wouldn't report him, and maybe he should just run away, find a telephone box and report it anonymously so that the mugger could receive medical attention._

"_I'll help you take care of this," the man said abruptly, turning to him. It was obvious that he was referring to seemingly unconscious mugger in the background. "What's your name?"_

"_Barney Stinson," Barney replied immediately, before realising that that was an infinitely stupid thing to do. _

"_Aw, it's cute how simple you are. Unique enough name, I guess. I'll be keeping in touch with you, Barney Stinson. You run off now, I'll handle this." The man said with a cool air._

_And for some reason, Barney listened. Perhaps because he had never been a confrontational, aggressive person. At least, until 5 minutes ago. So Barney took off, running down the street. He had a feeling that reporting the incident wasn't the smartest thing to do._

_But he could have sworn that as he left, he heard the man cracking his knuckles._


End file.
